


Their Ending

by magicians_entrepot



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, Chickens, Dogs, Fluff, Happy Ending, M/M, Marriage, Puppies, Retirement, Retirement AU, Stargazing, countryside, it's ALL fluff seriously, theres one or two mildly sad moments but its ALL FLUFF!!, they deserve so much better than they got. so i am here 2 provide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-20
Updated: 2019-03-20
Packaged: 2019-11-26 12:16:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18180479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicians_entrepot/pseuds/magicians_entrepot
Summary: Hal and Dave retire to the countryside, and try to make a life for themselves.





	1. Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> this took me SO LONG to write im so sorry. i hope you all will enjoy it though! put all my happy feelings into this one

Dave set his stuff down on the porch - he didn’t have much, just a bag of clothing plus some other essentials - and stretched, pressing his calloused hands to the small of his back. He felt relief with a satisfying  _ crack _ , and sighed as he turned to the sight before him.

Hal had just set his own bags down, mostly laden with his own equipment and some strange figurines he insisted upon, shaking out his thin arms to relieve some of the tension in them. They were both tired, having spent hours upon hours in that too-warm van, alternating between CDs and junk food and simple talk; but they were both still happy by the end of it, and more than relieved to have finally arrived. 

Their destination was set a few yards from a dirt country road, a two-story country house with chipped pastel paint and a pleasant - albeit worn down - porch in front. Its backyard was field, lavender and wildflowers and a few trees here and there, with a fringe of a forest in the distance. The van was parked to the left of the house, wedged between the road and a knobby tree.

“It’s so nice, isn’t it, Dave?” 

Hal’s voice sounded distant. Quieter, at least. The faint breeze could’ve threatened to silence him.

“It’s.. not Jupiter, but...” 

Hal laughed, making Dave smile. 

“..but yeah. It is. It is really nice.”

He felt a sweaty palm slide into his hand, fingers intertwine with his own. There was a silent, hopeful air between them, one that told of a new life. A relaxed life.   
Dave, for the first time in a long, long while, felt peaceful.  
  


\---   
  


“Sn- Dave!” Hal’s voice called from the floor below, sounding slightly muffled through the floorboards. Dave looked up from where he was crouched, setting their clothes out on the low mattress to put away for later. The bed frame was to the left, unassembled with scattered parts on the floor. The holes in the panels would’ve made it easy for screws to fall through, if they weren’t all sealed in the prepackaged plastic baggies.  
Light, uneven footsteps made their way up the creaky stairs, and the door in the corner of the bedroom opened a few seconds later. Disheveled hair, clouding a pair of thin-wire glasses and a pale, narrow face, poked into the small room.   
“Dave,” Hal panted, “the heating’s all busted. Nothing’s working.”  
  
“Huh.” He paused. “Is there anything I can do? Or.. you can do? You’re good with the technical stuff.”   
  
“Uh, I don’t know. It’s really old- _seriously_ old.” Hal pushed the door open the rest of the way, leaning on the chipped white doorframe. He rubbed at his arm, pocked with old white scars, and Dave watched as his gaze travelled over the semi-organized sets of clothes.  
  
“You’ve fixed ‘seriously old’ machines before, right? I don’t know why you’re telling me this.” Dave settled on his knees, then both his knees and left hand, and finally pushed himself up to stand on his feet.   
  
“Because it could be a while before I might be able to fix it. And we might not have heating in the winter, which could kill both us and my computers. My _computers_.” There was a hint of distress in his voice as he pressed his back to the frame, trying to make room for the both of them as Dave passed through.  
  
“You can do it. I don’t think there’s.. ever been a doubt in my mind that you couldn’t.” It took a pause to process the cheesiness of his sentiment, Dave scratching the back of his head in stuttered realization. It made Hal smile, at least, and that was never necessarily a bad thing.  
  
“Thanks, Dave - but really, if I can’t get this thing fixed, we’re going to call someone in. Okay?”  
  
“Hm.” He grumbled, yet, “Fine. I don’t exactly know how successful that call’s going to be, though.”  
  
“Successful enough. _You’re_ the one that brought up the whole idea of, well,” Hal vaguely motioned to the walls around them, “all this.”  
  
That made Dave sigh harder, unable to dispute that fact, and he slid his hand down the banister as he descended the stairs. They were creaky, steep, the wood was split in several places and the paint was well beyond chipped. The small descending corridor opened into the house’s foyer-esque area at the last few steps. He pushed off of the last split of wood onto the floor, shoving his feet into his sneakers and opening the screen door.   
The air was humid, thick in Dave’s lungs, leaving what felt like a fog of moisture clogging his airway. The hum of crickets vibrated in his ears, despite his loud steps on the packed dirt of their driveway (really, it was nothing more than a decent few yards of grassless dirt for cars and the like, but driveway was much simpler to say.).  
  
Dave opened the doors to the back of the van. The whole ugly thing was colored an off-beige, blending into possibly plains scenery and sticking out like a heavy-lined thumb against trees and forest; but it was big enough to hold all of their bags and furniture and dependable enough for moving it all in their one massive trip. The inside still smelled like it was poorly ventilated, that musty, old smell that held the scents of dust and dirt, unwashed breath and unescaped body odor. He thought to air the van out, but the humidity would hardly help its case.  
Instead, Dave climbed inside. He picked up a few things, such as the radio Hal insisted on bringing, the cardboard box filled with stacked plates and packaged utensils and a few small cooking utilities, and their shared plastic bag of toiletries. He held the box to his stomach/lower chest area, the radio on top, and the bag, the free area at the top bunched in his fist, pressed to the front of the box.   
  
He remembered finally climbing into that van for the first time - hell, finally starting to think of getting into the van, how he let his mind drift away from the episode of _Cowboy Bebop_ Hal had put on in their old apartment. The sounds of the city had always found a way to distract him, no matter what he was doing, and the wisps of temptation saying _“retire with him,”_ , _“start a new life,”_ , just barely slipped from his hands before he really got to think about the possibility. But that night, with the sounds of ever-intensifying jazz and gunfire coming from the TV, Dave had finally caught on to the daydream. He sat in that bubble for maybe five, ten minutes, letting Hal eat all the popcorn, before he had said it.  
  
_“We should leave. Retire.”_ __  
__  
_“What?”_ __  
__  
Hal had looked confused, but he didn’t pause the episode. Or maybe he did. It wasn’t important.  
  
_“We should get a truck and leave. Find somewhere else, anywhere that’s not here. Countryside, village, seaside, hell, we could find some stranded island and live there.”_ __  
__  
__“Why? I mean - I mean, what’s making you think that?”  
  
_“I don’t know, but I don’t think it matters. We should do it. Leave it all behind.”_ __  
__  
He didn’t know how he was able to convince Hal to follow through, to run away with him, to find the house and pay for it and finally, finally throw their worries away. But it didn’t matter how, all that mattered now was the two of them, and their house, with its broken heating and shitty stairs, and their new life. It sounded dumb, cliche, how every sappy story ended, but Dave didn’t have to worry about that, either. Didn’t want to.  
  
He hopped down from the van, his steps sending small clouds of dirt-dust as he walked, like in the old westerns. Dave balanced the box - with the radio on top - well in his arm, or well enough to open the door and keep his composure, before slipping through the entryway and setting the stack down beside their clump of shoes. They didn’t really have anything to cook, so he left the box alone, but grabbed the radio by its handle.  
  
Dave walked past the stairs to what was - presumably - a living room, almost entirely unfurnished save for a ratty old rug in the center and a fireplace to the opposing wall. It was brick, well made, with a dusty grate barring off the inside. He wasn’t quite interested, thinking, _Maybe Hal and I could make a fire sometime, if we could get wood_ , but that was all he paid to it as he left the room.   
The next space was a dining room-kitchen mix, with space for a semilarge table in the area around him and a wraparound counter a bit away from it. It formed what could be a bar, facing Dave, and then pressed to the wall and went along with it to make more counter space. It stopped at a stove doubling with an oven, started again, and ended at an old-looking fridge. Some cabinets hung about a foot above the space, and a couple larger ones were positioned under the counter areas. To the left of this nicely made area, though, was a door propped open with a suitcase; he recognized the stickers on it. Dave went to it, put his hand on the doorknob, flicked the light switch just beside it. Another steep set of stairs came into view, going down, down, down into a cement-floor basement. He put his hand on the wooden railing as he followed the steps.  
  
“Otaco- _Hal_ ,” Dave was still getting used to their non-codename basis, “I brought your.. radio, or whatever it is. I thought you’d..”  
  
He reached the floor, sneakers kicking up a bit of dust as they landed, and his voice faltered. Maybe he shouldn’t have been so dramatic about it, really.  
Hal had brought down one of his smaller bags, which apparently was filled with basic toolbox utilities and some other tools Dave didn’t quite recognize, and the contents were spilled all over the floor around him. He was working on a panel on the side of the heater, furnace, whatever it was called, and he had a pair of headphones on. The music was just barely audible from where Dave was standing, but it looked like Hal was seriously enjoying it - humming along, bobbing his head from side to side, occasionally breaking progress to do a clap or other hand movement. It was kinda cute, tremendously dorky, but cute.   
Dave stood there maybe five seconds before moving farther away from the stairs, further into where Hal could see him, and dropped the radio on the floor.   
Hal jumped, one of those was-just-caught-watching-porn shock jumps, falling from where he was situated on the balls of his feet and landing hard on his ass. He practically ripped one side of his headphones off.  
  
“Hey, D-Dave,” He re-adjusted his glasses, “I, uh -- how long were you.. standing there?”   
  
“A few seconds, maybe. I guess I didn’t need to bring your radio down, huh?” It made Dave smile, just a little bit, if whatever his mouth did right then could be called a smile.  
  
“I guess not, uh.. thanks, though. For bringing that, I mean.”  
  
The music from Hal’s headphones was still blaring. Dave recognized it, kind of, the barely intelligible sound of robot singing.   
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Y..Yeah. Alright.”  
  
The lull in their conversation stretched.  
  
Hal probably noticed that too. “I.. I should get back to work. Doing my magic fixing business, and all that.”  
  
“..Yeah. You do that.”  
  
Dave went back, back to the stairs, back up to the kitchen. By the time he was halfway back up, the humming had resumed, but the pressure of their awkward conversation still made him feel embarrassed. He wouldn’t go as far as humiliated, that role would probably fall to Hal, but definitely embarrassed.  
He didn’t linger on the thought for long. Dave went to go grab their blankets from the van; Hal would be tired by the time he was done.  
  
  
\---  
  
  
He was still awake by the time Hal came into the room, just barely. It had been about an hour since Dave had set aside their folded clothes, put the too-big fitted sheet on the mattress, unfolded one of the blankets they brought along. He heard a loud __ziiip , a quiet curse shortly after, and what sounded to be a very careful process of Hal kicking off his pants before he slid under the blanket with him. Dave opened an eye, hesitated a bit before lazily putting an arm around the other man. He wanted to see Hal’s face instead of just his back, but this would have to do.  
  
“Mm.. did you fix it?” His voice sounded gravelly, more so than usual.  
  
“The.. heater? Kind of. I-” Hal yawned, “I think. I’ll do some more testing.. tomorrow morning.”  
  
“Don’t- don’t worry about it. It’s spring, Hal, it’s fine.”  
  
“Spring’s.. already halfway done, you know.”   
  
Another shift. This time, Hal turned to face him, his eyes heavy-lidded and tired. Dave rubbed his thumb into the back of the man’s T-shirt, his finger flicking just barely over the top of his collar.   
  
“We came here for a reason, so we could stop worrying. Start living something worth going after. Not to stress over deadlines that don’t.. don’t exist. Not anymore.”

“Fine, I.. yeah, I guess you’re right on that part.”    
  
“Yeah, I am. And even if we didn’t have that heating, your computers aren’t everything. There’s a fireplace, there’s a town a few miles away, and-”   
  
“A few? We’re.. almost on a deserted island here, Dave.” Hal laughed; it made Dave almost feel flustered.   
  
“- _ and  _ I lived in Alaska for a while. I know how to live in freezing temperatures, Hal.”   
  
“Sure.. I don’t suppose we’ll be adopting a million huskies, then?”   
  
“Screw you.”   
  
Dave’s expression must’ve been funny, since Hal broke into quiet laughter almost instantly. It was really a pleasant sound, one of those cheesy laughs that sound fake the first time you hear them, but Dave’s pride, he decided, should be kept intact. At least for tonight. He couldn’t be made a laughing stock  _ twice _ , after all.   
He pulled Hal in for a kiss -  _ tried  _ to, at least - but the man was simply laughing too hard. Dave almost got his nose bitten off, and he was  _ not _ about to try to match the size of Hal’s open mouth with his own. It only made the man laugh harder. Their noses bumped together, Hal’s uneven breaths and movements causing their heads to collide in more than one ungraceful way, and pretty soon Dave gave up on trying to pepper the stubbly skin just around and under his chin with smaller kisses. There was just too much movement, it too awkward a thing to pull off, and Hal’s breathless laughter eventually made Dave start to crack up too. He didn’t really know why, but the smile started spreading across his lips and that gravelly laugh started spilling out of him before he could think.    
  
They kept at it for a little while longer, drunken off their dying laughter and Hal wheezing by the time they were done. Dave had pressed his hands into the front of the man’s shirt - purple, with some sort of detailed, robotic suit of armor on the front - and he let his grip loosen as they both calmed down. They laid there, in darkness, catching their breath. His hand pressed to Hal’s side; the silence began to stretch again.   
Then Hal kissed him.   
At first, it wasn’t anything good, clearly their obscured features and his partner’s lack of glasses messed up his initial try; but then Dave felt hands press up around his jaw and neck, fingers lace into the sides his hair, and the man repositioned himself.    
It was sloppy, filled with more passion than skill. Dave’s head went foggy after a few seconds - something he definitely wasn’t used to - but he let his partner do most of the work as he slowly slid his hands to Hal’s waist, lightly tugging him closer. The man sighed into the kiss, pushed Dave flat on his back as he shifted over to straddle his hips. Dave’s hands worked their way up Hal’s shirt, tracing his thumbs over the outline of his ribs and the scars directly below his chest, the heat of it all, encasing him. He pushed his head back into the pillow, tearing his lips from Hal’s, pulling the shirt up farther.   
  
“Take it off,” he said, voice barely audible. And Hal did.


	2. Aspirations

The smell of bacon woke Hal up.   
Which, frankly, was odd, considering how they had no bacon. No food at all, in fact. But Dave was gone, and the empty space beside him was cold. Their clothes were still all over the floor, unfortunately, leaving him to scramble for a pair of boxers and a shirt - one of Dave’s tees, he felt incredibly dorky in the oversized material - and to adjust the socks he hadn’t taken off from the night before. Hal slid on his print-smudged glasses and went through the open doorway, scratching at his hair-splotched back.   
The first thing he noticed, descending the creaky stairs, was the open box at the doorway. It was marked “Cook Stuff” in Dave’s messy handwriting - incredibly poetic on his part - but the utensils, mats and other various supplies were rummaged through and clearly picked apart. Hal’s hand fell away from the banister as he turned the corner, through the area he creatively named “fireplace room”, and out the adjacent doorway to the dining-room kitchen fusion. The sound of crackling bacon fizzled in his ears.   
Paper bags were all over the floor, all clearly printed with a sort of local farm aesthetic, and two plates were set out on the counter. Well, that, along with an open egg carton, a few cracked shells beside it, and some lone scraps of uncooked bacon. It looked like Dave was using one of the paper bags as an impromptu garbage bag, but the stain of what was presumably egg yolk on the side showed it wasn’t working great.   
  
Dave spoke first. Briefly.   
  
“Morning.”   
  
“I.. morning, Dave- where did you-”   
  
“I woke up early. The farmer’s market opens at 6, you know.” He dished out two more slices of bacon on one of the plates.   
  
“You.. drove all the way to town? Just to make breakfast?”   
  
“To get food, since we don’t have any. It’s almost noon, but I didn’t want to disturb you.”   
  
Hal’s stomach rumbled, and Dave smiled. Close-lipped, not one of Hal’s favorites - he loved when he got a solid grin out of him, those were always amazing - but it made him kind of happy anyway.    
  


“C’mon, Hal, grab a fork or something. There’s some beside the fridge.”   
  


“Mm.”   
  
And he did. Dave had piled all their utensils beside the fridge, leaving Hal to have to unearth the what was almost the entire stack and release audio hell just to grab a fork - he winced, Dave laughed. In the corner of Hal’s eye, he watched his partner turn the stove off.   
Dave picked up the plate on the left, the one with eggs sunny side up instead of scrambled. “You couldn’t be a little more quiet about that?”   
  
“Oh, be quiet. You wouldn’t do any better, not with all of our silverware in a messy heap.” His voice was teasing, but so was Dave’s; he handed the man a stray fork from the counter.    
  
“Only messy now that you’ve gone and unearthed it.”   
  
“Only messy because  _ someone _ couldn’t find a drawer to put it all in.” Hal grinned.   
  
“C’mon - you wouldn’t know where it was either, you know.” Dave’s last few words were muffled by eggs, standing a few feet away from the counter and its adjacent, still-warm stove. Since they started moving, his hair had grown longer, beard creeping a bit down his neck; Hal had always wondered how he had gotten to be so hairy.  
  
“Sure I would’ve. I can find hidden stuff too, Dave - I don’t have to be a supersoldier legend or whatever.” Hal bit off the end of a strip of bacon, returning Dave’s suspicious eyebrow raise with a semidefiant look of his own. To be honest, he wasn’t sure if he could match up to even half or a quarter of his partner’s skills, let alone the years of espionage the man went through. Hal was beginning to rethink his words, thinking Dave would try to strike up a challenge, when,   
  
“Whatever you say. I’m just gonna try to clean up a bit around here, take some more of our stuff out of the van before it gets too hot.”    
  
Huh. Kind of unexpected, but appreciated.   
  
“S..Sure. Yeah. Sounds good. I’ll do some cleaning too, or work on the heater, or something.”   
  
Dave took another bite from his eggs, stuffing the rest into his mouth. A bit of yolk caught in his beard. “You do that, but, you may want to get something more to wear. At least if you want to go outside. I’m not  _ complaining _ or anything, but..”   
  
Hal’s cheeks pinked. It was dumb, they had been together for a few years now, but he still was so easy to embarrass. “Right, yeah, uh,” He pulled at his shirt, _ Dave’s _ shirt, “sorry. About wearing your shirt, I mean.”   
  
“It’s fine, it’s not like you’re gonna stretch it out.” Hal’s cheeks only turned pinker, making Dave laugh. Again. The man slid the plate onto the counter, taking the last scrap of bacon off of it. The kiss that followed, that was  _ attempted _ , would’ve been sweeter if, well, there weren’t pieces of egg still caught in his beard, and if he hadn’t crammed the bacon strip into his mouth  _ before  _ he tried to give Hal a kiss. 

“G-Gross, Dave!” He laughed, grinning as he pushed his partner away. “Clean up your mouth a bit  _ before  _ you try to mack all over me!”    
  
Dave wiped his mouth-chin area off with the back of his hand, earning a  _ ‘Dave, that’s nasty!’  _ before trying to give Hal a followup cheek-kiss - it was way too wet, only making Hal laugh harder. The whole series of attempts was a disaster, but a funny one, at least to him.    
  
“You’re impossible to please,” Dave grumbled. The infectious laughter still made a smile creep over his features, though, just a little one.   
  
“And you’re impossible to kiss. Or.. get good kisses out of.” Hal rubbed at his mouth, “C’mon, get out there. There’s work to be done, you know, and I still have a lot of stuff to do with that furnace.”   
  
“Fine. Just make sure you don’t spend more time with  _ that furnace  _ than me.”   
  
Hal smiled.   
  
“I promise.”

  
  


\-----

  
  


Summer was right around the corner, breezy mornings and earlier evenings fading into lazy, sun-baked noons, twilights stretching out to meet the later hours of the night. The pair had finished moving in, finally, after a week of heavy lifting and tweaking and cleaning, the house was something they could actually call home. Hal was proud - he could tell Dave was too, even if the man barely showed it. They finally had a place they could stay, a place that was trustworthy and reliable, somewhere comfortable. Without the paranoia of being caught, being tracked, lingering at the door.   
  
Dave had called for celebration, and had headed out about an hour before to get some celebratory.. things. He hadn’t disclosed what he was buying, just for Hal to be at the side of the house when he got home. So Hal followed those instructions, swatting away some lingering flies as he waited under darkening night sky.   
  
And waited.   
  
And waited some more, until he heard the sound of an engine rumbling down the road. A car door slammed - he recognized the slight squeak of the driver’s door’s rusted hinges - and some faint footsteps cracked twigs and leaves underfoot as they approached. Dave popped up from around the corner, two paper bags in hand. He held them up; one of them clinked - the sound of aluminum cans.   
  
“Brought the stuff.”    
  
“..Great. Are you going to tell me what you bought?”   
  
Dave grunted. “In a bit. Let me hoist you up - I wanna show you something.”   
  
And so, after a bit of confused banter, and after a pretty obvious struggle on Hal’s end, the two of them had gotten up on the roof. The actual roof, not the smaller, lower, branching-off portion that they had initially climbed up onto. They were just above their bedroom; Hal recognized the chipped wood on the windowsill. It was a nice view from where they were, but he felt unstable standing on that slope.   
  
“Sit down. Or lay down, uh, it would probably be easier if you lay down.”    
  
He had planned on doing so anyway, so it wasn’t a big favor to ask. Hal adjusted himself against the chipped tiles, giving Dave a suspicious look as he dug into the bags. A light blue, almost periwinkle, folded blanket came out in Dave’s hand.   
  
“Dave, if you wanted to have sex you could’ve just asked, but this would be pretty uncomfo-”   
  
“It’s  _ not  _ sex. Seriously. Just trust me.”    
  
And so Hal waited again, wrapping his arms around his legs and resting his chin on his knees as he did so. He watched the rippling grass in the distance, looked over the dirt-stained tires and underside of their van, tracked a small lizard as it skittered over their driveway. The sun had fully set at this point, sinking under the trees in the distance, when Dave sat with a sigh beside him. A six-pack of beer was in one hand, the unfolded blanket in the other.   
  
“Scoot over.”   
  
Hal did. His elbow bumped against Dave’s arm. “Dave, I-”   
  
“I know you don’t drink. So I brought soda, too.”    
  
That made him smile. “Dr. Pepper?”   
  
“Of course. Only an idiot would get anything else for you.” Dave settled the blanket over their legs, doing some rough tweaking to the corners and sides before letting it be. He plunked the beer beside him, rustling with one of the paper bags to take out a few soda cans - all Dr. Pepper. Hal took one from his hand, opened it with a satisfying  _ crack _ .   
  
“Seriously, Dave, what is this all about? I mean, I know we’re celebrating, but we could’ve just stayed inside and done the exact same thing.”   
  
Dave leaned back against the tiling, supported by his elbows as he cracked open one of his beers. “Because I know you’d like this better. Just lay back and look up.”

So he did. Hal settled back against the rough roof, clutching the cold can in his hands, as he brought his eyes up to the night sky.   
Stars - hundreds, maybe even thousands of them, greeted him. The moon was a solid white circle in the distance, rising over the trees and spilling the fields with pale, soft light, and he let out an audible  _ woah _ . It was beautiful, constellations spread out above their heads, dotted individually and clearly against deep black sky. They never would have gotten a view like this in their travels, not in the cities, not in deep forest, not even on their winding road trips - they spent too much time in broken down cars, almost always emitting too much smoke from their engines or elsewhere to see anything this clear. But now they had it, a view so undisturbed and  _ pure  _ that it would be a sin to look anywhere else. He felt like he could reach out a hand and grasp the sky in his palm, turning it in his fingers, pushing the stars to whole new places with the slightest touch. He was so deep in the thought, he hadn’t noticed he had stretched out his arm to actually try to do so, fingers spread out between the tiny points of light. Hal’s thoughts were brought back down, weighted again, by a pleased hum on Dave’s end, and he dropped his hand.    
  
“I take it you like the view?” Dave’s voice was quiet, and Hal felt his stare lingering on him.   
  
“I.. yeah. Yeah, I really do.”    
  
“Good. Because if you didn’t, I would be all out of ideas.”   
  
Hal laughed, nudging the man’s muscled shoulder with his own. “It’s not like you to do something like that. No backup involved, not even me.”    
  
“Well, maybe it’s time to break out of old habits. You could do with some of that too, like maybe going outside once in a while.”   
  
He tried to hide his offended expression in his soda can, taking a dramatically loud sip to try to drown out Dave’s half-choked laughter. Hal let himself be pulled under Dave’s arm, still frowning, resting the can between his chest and his hand. It would definitely leave a mark on the fabric, but nothing that wouldn’t fade with a little time.   
  
“C’mon, let’s just.. stargaze or something. It’s the reason I brought y-you up here.” Dave’s words were slightly interrupted by tiny bits of lingering laughter, making Hal only frown harder. But, he agreed - it was definitely difficult to stay angry at the man.   
So that’s what they did. They watched the stars, pointing out constellations; Dave knew a few from textbooks and the like, but Hal knew most.   
  
Dave’s hand reached out above their heads, his other dropping the now-empty beer can to his side. He pointed to another spot in the sky, one they hadn’t yet covered, “What’s that one called?”    
  
Hal brought their blanket further around himself. “Aquila. It was an eagle, uh, the eagle that carried Zeus’s thunderbolts. Or, I mean, you can call him Jupiter, if you’re more into the Roman mythos.”    
  
“Jupiter, huh?”   
  
Hal grinned. “Yeah. It’s.. a shame we weren’t able to make it there.”   
  
Dave pressed a kiss to Hal’s temple, beard scratching against skin, making the younger man laugh. He watched as Dave struggled to open another beer with one hand, failed, and said, “You know, I think this place is Jupiter enough. We can imagine it to be, at least.”   
  
Hal shifted against him, bringing his arm to rest across Dave’s chest. His own empty can tumbled from his grip, sliding down the roof.   
  
“Yeah. Yeah, I think you’re right. That sounds nice. Like.. Jupiter Farm, or something.”   
  
Dave chuckled. “You wanna start a farm? In your shape?”   
  
“Be quiet. Anyone can start a farm, and I would think you’d give me at least  _ some _ help.”   
  
There was a pause. Hal looked up to watch Dave’s expression.   
  
“Mm.. yeah. I think I would. On one condition, though.”   
  
He raised an eyebrow, “And that is?”   
  
“We get a dog. Doesn’t have to be a husky, but-”   
  
Hal laughed, hard, grinning into the red t-shirt he was pressed against. “O-Of course. Obviously. I was wondering when y-you were gonna ask to get one!”   
  
“Well, dogs are good - they’re friendly and.. all that, and it’d be a good addition to a farm. Every farm has one, right?”   
  
“Not every one. Some farmers have dog allergies.”   
  
Dave sighed. “Alright, well,  _ almost _ every farm has one. And it would be nice. I could see one following the chickens around, or nosing through the crops or something.”   
  
“Mm..” Hal looked over the expanse of empty land before them. He could start to see it, too, a small puppy waddling after Dave with bags of fertilizer in his arms, a growing dog trying to tackle Hal to the ground as he weeded the crops. “..yeah. Yeah, me too.”   
  
“So it’s settled, then?”   
  
He nodded the best he could. “Yeah. It’s, uh, it’s gonna be hard, you know. Making a farm.”   
  
“Nothing harder than what we’ve faced before.”    
  
Hal smiled, tracing his thumb along the letters on Dave’s shirt. “I guess so.”   
  
They stayed like that for a little while, watching the stars, the hum of crickets filling the empty space between them. A breeze ruffled Dave’s hair; Hal heard the  _ crack _ of a beer can being opened.   
  
“Hey, Hal?” Dave’s voice sounded quiet.   
  
“Yeah?”   
  
“I love you.”    
  
Hal looked up at his partner, light blue eyes meeting gray. He wasn’t sure if it was the first time those words were spoken, their busy schedules had limited too much affection or cheesed statements, but they knew they loved each other. They felt it, at least, but they probably never told each other face to face.   
  
“I love you too, Dave.”   
  
And Dave kissed him. The taste of beer and their dinner of buttered pasta greeted him instantly, but he barely minded. He melted into it, hand coming up to cup the side of the older man’s face, tiny shocks of static making them jump and laugh and make it so much harder to keep going, but they did. The taste of cigarettes was long gone, thankfully, but he had little time to relish it as he pulled himself away.   
Dave was beautiful. Hal pressed his forehead to his, the side of his head dug into by roof tile. He licked his lips, opened his mouth again,   
  
“I love you. So much.”   
  
Dave’s cheeks had gone pink. Beautiful. His lips had swollen slightly in just that short time. Beautiful.   
  
“I love you too, just.. a whole lot. More than all of those stars up there.”   
  
And Hal smiled, and kissed him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so cheesie. so cheesy im so sorry


	3. Hardworking

Hal was much harder to wake up than Dave initially thought.   
He had tried kisses, prodding, tickling, even, but Hal just groaned every time and rolled over.    
  
“I’ll make you breakfast?”   
  
“Mm. Can wait till lunch.”   
  
“..What about some fresh air? We’ve got to get up early for farm work.”   
  
“S’barely even.. dawn, Dave..”   
  
He paused, trying to nudge Hal’s shins with his cold feet. The blanket didn’t always cover Dave’s lower legs.   
It didn’t work.   
So, he tried a different approach. He eyed the figurines laid out on their dresser, a bunch of high quality anime and video game ones, and got up from their bed. Dave took one in his hand - it was a well-muscled man in an old Japanese school uniform, but with a chain dangling from the coat collar and a weird hat on his head.    
  
“I’ll throw one of these in the woods if you don’t get up.”   
  
It worked like a charm.   
  
  
\---   
  
  
After breakfast, getting dressed, and a bunch of attempted lazing around on Hal’s end, Dave got them both outside. Heavy bags of fertilizer were stacked against the stairs, packets of labeled seeds rubberbanded in neat piles on top. The tools and wraparound fence they got cost a pretty penny, but if they really were going to go through with all of this, they’d be necessary. The land to the side of their house was wide open.   
  
“So,” Dave began, “where do you want to start?”   
  
“I.. don’t know. There’s so much land to cover.”   
  
He picked up a set of tomato seeds, turning them over to read the info on the back. “We don’t have to cover all of it, you know. Just some of it.”    
  
“Yeah, but, it’s.. intimidating. Kind of.”   
  
Dave looked over at him, “Then we’ll start small. Expand as we go along.”   
  
“Mm.. alright. Yeah. Let’s do that.”    
  
He handed Hal some of the seed packets, pressing them into his hands, and hefted one of the bags of fertilizer over his shoulder. They were going to have to start now; the day was already beginning.   
  
  
\---   
  
  
It took them hours of shovelling and digging dirt, sprinkling seeds and watering them in amounts of hopeful guesses when the directions weren’t clear, but it was worth it. By the time they had planted the tomatoes, the basil, the peppers, they were already halfway done. Dave had gone inside to make some sandwiches and refill their water bottles while Hal continued working.    
He kicked the dirt from his shoes onto the welcome rug, shuffling into the kitchen to wash the dirt and grime from his hands and face. He took out the bread, coated a side on each with a helping of mayo, cut the ham, pressed some lettuce on top, and with a bit more tweaking, finished the sandwiches. He refilled their bottles - Dave’s was completely empty while Hal’s was only halfway finished - and tucked them under his arm, holding one plate in each hand as he made his way back to the door.   
  
Once Hal saw him come around the corner he dropped the shovel, sweat sticking his hair to his face and his shirt to his torso. Dirt was all over the shins and knees of his jeans, even more on his hands and face and crawling up his arms, but he was grinning. He took his sandwich from Dave with a sweaty kiss to the man’s cheek, pulling his water bottle from under the man’s arm. Dave sat down in front of the tomatoes, directly across from the hammered-in wooden stake with the packet taped to the front, and Hal joined him.   
  
He cast a glance towards his partner; Hal’s shirt practically see-through with moisture. “Do you wanna take that off?”    
  
Hal looked up with his mouth full of sandwich. “Afe yew shure?”   
  
He laughed, “Yeah. Seriously. That thing’s not doing any more good for you.”    
  
So Hal did, albeit slightly sheepishly, and dropped the wet material beside him. He rolled his shoulders, stretched his arms above his head, and sighed, “God, you were right. This was a good choice.”   
  
“I sure was. I’ve been able to be shirtless  _ most _ of my life, so I definitely know when it’s.. good, I guess, to take off your shirt.” He took another bite from his sandwich. Hal nodded, popping open the cap to his water bottle. It was from an anime convention a few years back, emblazoned with some characters Dave didn’t recognize, and he scratched at his neck as his partner drank from it. Some bugs were trying to hover around their food. 

By the time they were done, Dave had already killed at least three flies; two were crushed against his white paper plate and one was against his leg. Hal had kept ducking and holding his sandwich at weird angles, swatting away bugs when they came to him, but overall his food had gone un-flied. Hal wiped his hands on his already dirty jeans. “Thanks for lunch, Dave.”   
  
“Mhm. No problem,” He wiped his mouth of sandwich crumbs, earning a wince from Hal, “I can go throw out the plates. Get you another shirt, too, so you don’t get sunburned or anything.”   
  
“Oh. Right.” Hal laughed nervously, “Yeah, uh, you do that. Thanks, Dave.”    
  
So Dave did. He took their plates, tossed them out in the empty fertilizer bag they kept for trash, and stomped up the porch and interior stairs to their room. He stepped over the various wires tethering part of the wall to Hal’s computer, where it had taken residence in the corner to the right of their bed, and opened one of his partner’s clothing drawers to take out a neatly folded T-shirt. Dave had put that one away, he did the laundry that week, all the other recently unworn shirts were rumpled and carelessly stuffed in beside the neat pile.   
By the time he returned Hal was already at work again, digging another small trench with a few packets of the cucumber seeds at his feet. Dave tapped his shoulder, gave him the shirt; he watched as scraggly chest hair and smoothed top scars disappeared under the blue fabric.    
He kneeled beside his partner on the ground. “Here, I’ll help - you’re not digging that deep enough for the seeds.”    
  
  
\---   
  
  
“Dave! Dave, c’mon, the sun’s setting! Hurry!”   
  
He heard Hal’s voice from their open bedroom window, reinforcing the sort of urgency that came with rapidly-decreasing time. Dave was going through their bed and the area around it, taking off pillows and ripping back their blankets trying to find his camera, and it was only after he had disassembled the coverings that he found it poking out from beneath a mess of spare cables beside the bed. He grabbed it, yanked the bedroom door back open and ran down the stairs two steps at a time - Hal was yelling at him to  _ hurry, hurry, hurry! _ the entire time. Dave sprinted over to the side of the house, camera in hand, to the wide patch of land that held all the crop seeds. His feet slid on the dirt as he came to a stop; he held up the camera.   
  
“Hal, move over a bit - you’re not in frame.”   
  
“Fine, just-- take it quick! The sun’s s-”   
  
“I know, I know! Smile or something, I’m about to take the picture.”    
  
There was a quick white  _ flash _ as Dave pressed the button, and a second or so later a white-bordered square was printed out of the bottom. He took it out, shook it, and waved Hal over once the image finished processing.   
It was a small, slightly blurry photo of Hal doing double peace-signs with a huge grin plastered to his flushed face, alongside the various small trenches they dug for the seeds. There were stakes hammered in beside each one with the packets taped on - tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, basil, and some other herbs towards the back.    
  
“You look so dumb,” Dave grinned.   
  
“I do not. I look fine!” Hal lightly hit his shoulder, “And, besides, we need one with you in it. At least one.” That earned a groan from Dave. “C’mon, mister, get to those seeds.”   
  
“But-”   
  
“It wouldn’t be fair if we didn’t get one of you, too. Just go, Dave, we don’t have a lot of time!”   
  
Dave did, but not with some more complaining and hesitation. He stood beside the cucumber stake, giving the camera a half-assed thumbs up, when the flash temporarily blinded him. He blinked the white spots out of his eyes, which took a few seconds, and he heard Hal laugh - Dave groaned again.   
  
“Oh,  _ man _ , Dave, you look  _ so _ uncomfortable in this! Was the flash really that bad?”    
  
He trudged over, looked at the photo held tight in Hal’s hand. He was right; Dave’s whole self looked uncomfortable and out of place at the same time - the thumbs-up hardly helped, no, it just made him look sadder.   
  
“Shit.”   
  
“Shit is right. Here, just - you need a better picture.”   
  
Hal pulled him closer, he shifted against the hand at his waist, and he winced as he watched his partner manhandle and almost drop the camera to get the lens pointed at them. Dave heard a countdown just beside his ear, an excited  _ three, two, one _ before the flash hit him again - he felt a tiny bit of pressure against his cheek, only for a moment, but it was gone before he could say anything. He waited as the image processed, Hal took his hand from his waist.    
Dave took the picture in his hand. His expression was serious, as always, or maybe slightly less so. His cheeks looked pinker, at least, and the scowl that always stuck to him had lessened. He realized what the tiny bit of pressure was - Hal had kissed him, at least on the cheek, for the picture; but, a badly suppressed grin was pretty obviously trying to take over his face. The bits of gray in his hair left over were starting to disappear, but they were still visible in the photo. Dirt was smudged on both of their faces.    
  
“You see? You can be cute in photos too, it just takes a bit more effort.” Hal took the photo from his hand, “We should add these to the fridge or something. They’re good!”   
  
“Mm. Fine. For the memory, I guess.”   
  
“For the memory. And because I need to make some dinner, because I’m starving.”   
  
Dave grinned, “I’ll make dinner. You go wash up, you stink like a pig in mud.”   
  
Hal reluctantly pressed the pictures into his hand, looking offended. “You do too - you’re barely better than I am.”   
  
Dry dirt crackled under their feet as they walked, “Sure, but I didn’t sweat my way through  _ two  _ shirts.”   
  
“Because you’re an absurdly buff supersoldier. So, unfair.” Hal opened the screen door.   
  
“Keep using that excuse. Someday, you’ll be as strong as I am.” He pressed a kiss to Hal’s forehead as he walked in with him, lips screwing slightly up at the taste of sweat.   
  
Hal smiled. “Unlikely.”  
  
“Hm. Likely. Go take that shower, dinner will be done when you come back down.”   
  
“..Mac n’ cheese?”   
  
“Yeah, mac n’ cheese. You deserve something for working so hard.”   
  
Dave smiled slightly at Hal’s grin, shaking his head as he watched the - fully grown - man race up the stairs and off into the hallway. He kicked off his own muddy boots, placing them beside his partner’s dirt-stained blue sneakers, and shuffled his way towards the kitchen. He caught a glance at himself in the window - dirt was smeared across the front of his shirt, patches of hair stuck to the sides of his head, and some deep brown soil had started inching across the skin on his arms. The dirt had gotten clogged under his nails and hair especially, which, to his displeasure, turned out to be rather hard to wash out in the sink.   
After a while Dave gave up on trying to clean out his nails, cupping some of the sink water in his hands and splashing it onto his face, running his fingers through almost inky-brown hair. He wiped his wet hand across his mouth, looking up at his reflection in the window.    
Just for a second, a moment, his father stared back at him, the shadow cast over his eye providing a likeness too similar for comfort. But he backed away from the glass and pulled at his sticky shirt collar - it wasn’t something to dwell on, those memories never were. Dave went to go grab a pot and lid from the cupboard.   
  
  
\---   
  
  
Two bowls of steaming, ridiculously cheesy mac n’ cheese were dished out on their small table. He adjusted the handwoven placemats beneath them, which he had bought at a shop in town, and plunked down two metal forks beside each. Their table was relatively small; a round, dark wood surface with deep lines etched into it, and three lighter wooden chairs set around it. They always preferred the chairs directly opposing one another, probably because the third chair was significantly smaller, but also because Dave got a solid view of Hal every morning. Hair matted to his head or sticking straight up, stubble slowly creeping up his jaw and a very, unmatchable tired expression on his face; it was.. oddly comforting. Human, at the least, and pretty cute.   
He had gone to go get a beer from the fridge when he heard Hal’s footsteps on the stairs, sounding out a couple loud creaks, before he saw the man’s lanky figure in the corner of his eye. Dave turned around, holding the fridge door handle, and eyed the clashing combo of pikachu slippers, blue flannel pajama pants, and a dark green t-shirt. Hal’s hair was wet, his hand on the door frame.   
  
A grin split the man’s face. “You actually made it?”   
  
Dave gave a small  _ mhm _ , opening the lower fridge door. “I didn’t want to disappoint you or anything, so.. yeah. We  _ are _ going to have to get more milk and cheese, though.”   
  
He heard the legs of one of the chairs scrape against the floor, “That’s fine. I just..  _ man _ , I haven’t had the recipe in so long, you know? It’s silly, but..”   
  
“Mm.. no, I get it.” Dave closed the door, opening the beer can. “I felt the same way after long missions. All I wanted was to make mac n’ cheese and sleep.”    
  
“Exactly.” Hal had already started eating before Dave reached the table, circling his fork around in the gooey pasta to get as much as possible in one bite. Dave put down the can, swallowing back the drink before saying, “Don’t eat too much too fast, you’re gonna get sick.”   
  
“It’sh fine. S’not like there’sh anyone around t’judge me.” He arched an eyebrow; Hal swallowed. “Okay, okay,  _ other _ than you.”   
  
Dave took a forkful of mac from his own bowl, chewing on it as he turned his head to the window. He could just barely see the wood posts poking up in the dirt - the packets’ corners were moving slightly in the wind. “We did pretty good today. Considering you took so long to get up, at least.”   
  
“Hey!  _ You’re  _ the one that threatened to throw out Jotaro.”   
  
“You’ve named your figurines?”   
  
“They already had names, Dave. Maybe you should watch some anime with me, then you’d know why I care about them so much.”    
  
Dave took another bite of his mac n’ cheese. “Hm.. maybe. I’m fine with just watching you play your video games.”   
  
“You should learn to play some! I swear, they’re a lot of fun when you get into them - although you’d probably have to start off with more basic ones, like Pokemon, or.. Animal Crossing, maybe.” It was pretty clear that Hal was restraining himself from talking more in depth about said games, his expression going  _ ‘Wait, no, I have more to explain about them!’ _ , tapping the prongs of his fork against the placemat.    
  
“Whatever you say. I’m not really.. interested in the idea of them, though. Playing them, I mean. It’s just fun watching you mess around with your games.”   
  
“Mm. Do you mean my speedrunning?”   
  
Dave coughed. “..Yeah. Speedrunning. Weird name.”   
  
Hal shrugged, fork scraping against the walls of his bowl. “It’s accurate, y’know. And a lot of fun. Or really frustrating, depending on what game you’re doing it for; like, Super Mario 64 would be a lot different to do than Demon’s Souls, or-”   
  
“Ookay, yeah, I think I understand. Different mediums, different styles of approach, right?” Dave interjected, talking around his food.   
  
“Yeah! Yeah, exactly.” Hal grinned, his utensil clattering against his bowl as he finished. “I, uh- is there any more mac?”    
  
“‘Course there is. I wasted all our cheese and milk on this.”   
  
“Awesome. Thanks, uh, thanks again for making it. I would’ve, but-”   
  
He smiled. “But you suck at cooking.”   
  
“Riiiight.” Hal laughed sheepishly, pushing his chair back as he stood up. His bowl was in his hands, his hair still damp; and as he walked past the table and towards the kitchen, Dave pulled his head down slightly to kiss his cheek. It was embarrassing, putting himself out on a limb there, but he loved the instant color in Hal’s face as a result.    
  
“Love you,” He smiled, again. Or maybe he hadn’t even stopped smiling.   
  
“I- love you, too. Yeah.” Hal then grinned, one of those large, dumb ones, “But you really, really gotta take a shower. You stink  _ so _ bad right now.”   
  
“Oh, shut up.” Dave pushed him away, and as Hal started laughing, walking farther away, he said it again. “Shut up! I made you dinner!”   
  
But he was grinning. He felt happiness bubble up and over in his chest, and as he stood up and almost knocked the chair over, as he ran over and grabbed Hal in his arms, laughing with him as he swung him around and hugged him in a mockingly lovey-dovey way, Dave just couldn’t stop smiling. His joking maniacal laughter came as a natural response to Hal’s  _ ‘Noooo! I’m clean! Stop dirtying me!’ _ s, and when he pressed a kiss to Hal’s lips, he felt that same happiness rise up into his head, flow into his arms, legs, through his chest and torso. Dave was happy, he was content, he felt a comfortable, domestic, genuine love that he was sure he had never felt before. And it all felt so, so good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it was already hinted @ in chapter one but YES hal is trans. my proof: he's trans!


	4. A Future

“Bones! C’mon, come here, buddy!”    
Hal slapped his hands against his thighs, once, twice, three times, before the small puppy came out from between the crops. It waddled over the slightly raised areas of dirt, carefully sliding off the last one before jogging over into Hal’s open arms. Hal stood back up, Bones licking at his throat and tickling the slight hints of stubble there, and he simply grinned as he walked back out through the garden gate. He let it swing shut behind him.   
Dave was tending to the chickens, filling the small wooden trough with food mix and bits of food scraps, and Hal saw him smile as the multicolored birds crowded around his legs to get to what he was pouring. The water dishes were all already filled from what he could see; the hose was shut off and outside of the fence across from them. Dave set the bucket on the dirt just outside of the fence, only a bit away from the large food mix containers, his hand on the gate by the time Hal reached him. Bones was straining against his arms, trying to leap down into the chicken pen; his eyes were on the chicken coop on the other side.   
  
Dave scratched the top of Bones’s head, opening and closing the waist-level gate behind him. “Have you seen Kirk? I haven’t seen him around anywhere since I got up.”   
  
“Yeah - he somehow got all the way downstairs and into the basement by himself. He was wailing by the time you went out, poor little guy.”    
  
“Hm. Dumb move on his part, he shouldn’t have done that anyway.”   
  
“He’s just a puppy, Dave! Let him do some exploring on his own once in a while. It’s only natural.” Hal picked out a bit of chicken seed caught in his partner’s hair, sighing lightly as Dave pressed a kiss to his temple. “And, anyhow, it’s not like he’s getting out into the fields on his own.”    
  
“Fine, whatever. But all this  _ exploring  _ isn’t gonna end up well. Your game stuff might get all chewed up.”   
  
He let out a mock gasp of horror, “No, my wires? To which I have electrical tape for, and which are all quarantined?”    
  
Dave groaned, but he was smiling. “Shut up. You know what I mean - if we don’t discipline them, they’re gonna do something wreckless and stupid. It’s inevitable.”    
  
They started walking, and Hal scratched at the base of Bones’s neck. The puppy’s tongue was lolling out from his mouth, paws on Hal’s chest. “You would never do something like that, would you? No, you’re a good boy, and you’re gonna help me prove Dave wrong.”   
His partner rolled his eyes, and Hal set the puppy down. It ran up to the front porch, paused, then ran back to the two men, scampering around their feet and nipping at Hal’s shoelaces. It sparked a small laugh in his throat, gently nudging the small pup away from his already chewed laces, and as Dave took his hand in his Bones was already moving over to the other man’s legs.   
By the time they made their way to the porch, Kirk, their other, lighter-brown puppy was scratching at the screen door. Hal let him out and he instantly tackled Bones to the ground, the two yipping and tussling and nipping at each other - nothing hard enough to hurt, but enough to get the both of them pretty dirty. Hal scratched at the back of his neck, Dave gave him a look that said  _ ‘You’re gonna hose them down’ _ .    
  
“Hal, you can go head inside if you want - I’ll hang out with Kirk and Bones some more, get them both some fresh air.” Dave let go of his hand.   
  
“You sure? I don’t mind staying out here.”   
  
“Then you do that. Do whatever you want, really, nobody’s gonna stop you.”   
  
Hal smiled, “Other than responsibilities. And my need to eat, and drink.”   
  
Dave rolled his eyes, getting down onto his knees to pull the puppies apart. “Those are  _ things _ , b-.. Hal, not people.”   
  
“What was that?” He raised an eyebrow.   
  
“What was what?”   
  
“You were gonna call me something else. With a B.”   
  
Dave stood back up, quickly turning his back to him. He had already started walking, leaving Hal to hop off of the porch step he was halfway on and catch up. “Nothing. Maybe you misheard.”

Hal nudged his bicep with an elbow, grinning at his downturned face. “C’mon, Dave, tell me! Was it a name of a dark past lover? A secret code to unlock your genetic secrets? The name of a long-lost bro-”   
  
“Babe. It was babe. Will that make you shut up about my hidden secrets?” Dave’s head and eyes were faced forward, gaze locked on the two dogs in front of them.   
  
His cheeks pinked, but he was still smiling. A tiny, happy thing. “Oh.”   
  
“Yeah. I’m.. sorry, I should only call you by your name, I shouldn’t..-”   
  
“No! No, no, you’re fine. You’re fine..  _ babe _ .” His voice dropped an octave, wiggling his eyebrows. Dave caught his eye and his solemn expression cracked, mumblings breaking into rough, quiet laughter. “Fuck. Hal, oh, you are.. I can’t even describe it.”    
  
“Incredibly attractive?”   
  
“Fuck you - you  _ cannot _ pull off suave, I- Hal-”    
  
“No, you can’t call me Hal anymore. Pet names only.”  
  
“Fine. Otacon.”   
  
“That’s not a pet name!” Hal’s suave voice dropped, replaced with a tone in a much higher octave, making Dave crack up even more. It was unusual seeing him smile or even laugh this much, but it really was a nice sight to see.    
  
“F..Fine - fine, I’ll call you a stupid nickname. How about sugar?”   
  
“It feels too cowboyesque to me. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with that, but-”   
  
“Yeah. No. I’ll change it.” They were clearly both on the same line of thought; their few run-ins with a cowboy hadn’t been particularly great. Dave paused, just a bit, “Honey?”   
  
“Mm.. makes me feel hungry instead of happy. Again, there’s nothing  _ wrong _ with it, b-”   
  
“Just tell me you don’t like it. How does dear sound?”   
  
Hal groaned, “You’re gonna make us age even faster, Dave! C’mon, just call me babe. And I’ll call you babe. It’s perfect, right?”   
  
His partner rolled his eyes, gently nudging Kirk away from the fence around the chicken coop. “Yeah. Alright. Perfect, babe.”   
  
“I’m glad you like it, babe.”    
  
“Of course I do, babe. I like you, so I’m gonna like your ideas. Babe.”    
  
Hal grinned, taking Dave’s hand in his and squeezing it. “Love you, babe.”  
  
“Love you too, babe.” The older man ran his thumb over Hal’s knuckles, “But I’m not sure if we can play catch with the dogs if we’re holding hands.”   
  
“Fine, fine - you brought a ball?”    
  
“Yeah. Took the one from beside the stairs,” Dave took his hand from Hal’s and shoved it into a pocket against his lower thigh, taking out a small , bright blue ball. It was slightly chewed on one side, the mark of tiny fangs dug into the patterned polyethylene, but the puppies were still both eager to see it. He held it out to Hal, “do you want to go first?”   
  
“No, it’s alright. You can throw it,  _ babe _ .” Hal smiled, and Dave shook his head.   
  
“You’re gonna wear me thin.” The man stretched his arm back, muscled bicep pressing against shirt sleeve, and tossed the ball. It didn’t go all that far, probably intended, but it kept the puppies busy for a little while as they ran - and fought - for the ball.    
  
“But you still like it, right?” Hal swatted away a stray fly.   
  
“Yeah. Just not used to it.”   
  
The two dogs started winding back around, closer and closer, the ball shining from saliva.   
  
“You can tell me if you ever want me to stop, y’know. Dave’s still a good name.” He grunted as Bones collided with him, pawing at his legs with the ball in his mouth. Hal took it, stretched his own arm back and threw it out into the field again, sitting on the grass where they stood.   
  
“Yeah, I know. I just.. I’m not used to this amount of domestic..ness, I guess. This is all comforting, and you make me happy, but sometimes I can’t take it all in.” Dave settled back on the dirt beside him, “It just feels like it isn’t real sometimes. Too good to be true. Like the colonel is gonna call me in again and say that this was all just another mission, and maybe that I failed it by getting too close to you.”    
  
“Oh.”   
  
Dave shrugged, “Sorry.”   
  
“No, no, you’re fine, Dave. Don’t say sorry. Listen, I.. love you. A lot. And Kirk and Bones do too, and all our chickens, and all the people in town we’ve met.” Hal turned towards him, “And I promise that this isn’t another mission. If it was, I’d be.. so, so angry,” He laughed. “but not at you. Never at you. But you’re here, and I promise Campbell or anybody will never control you or get their hands on you again. Because you’re safe, and I’d protect you with my life.”   
  
Dave paused for a moment, fingers tracing over the blades of grass around them. A ladybug buzzed past his ear.   
  
“Thanks. Thank you, Hal. I love you too.”   
  
“Of course.” Hal’s arms wrapped around his knees. Kirk and Bones were bounding back towards them, and he smiled a bit at their eager expressions. “But, I- you don’t have to be alone. I’m here, always, and I really do wanna spend the rest of my life with you.”   
  
His partner smiled, “That sounds like a proposal. Would you really want to marry me?”   
  
The dogs skidded to a stop in front of them, dropping the ball to the ground. Hal picked it up again.   
  
“Yeah, maybe I would.”   
  
  
\---   
  
  
“You may now kiss the groom.”    
  
Hal’s ring caught against a loose thread on Dave’s shoulder, but he barely had time to register it as his partner - his  _ husband _ \- pulled him in for a kiss. He felt arms wrap around his waist and a hand press against his back, and he melted in the contact as he looped his own arms around Dave’s neck.    
It was a courthouse wedding, nothing fancy, but still official. Hal insisted on them both buying suits, a dark purple one for himself and a classic black one for Dave, but they both still wore their respective sneakers and hiking boots. When Dave had seen him walk down the porch stairs, he had visibly  _ melted _ . His eyes softened, grim expression of  _ ‘we’re going to be late’ _ fading into one which Hal thought was pure admiration. They hadn’t talked at all during the car ride, didn’t say a thing to the other until they got to the actual courtroom.    
Dave had given a small speech saying how much Hal meant to him, how grateful he was, how Hal was everything in his life. Hal had described how much Dave had helped in his recovery from his father, how being with him made him the happiest man in the world. He had said,   
  
_ “You’ve made me happier than anyone else. You’ve stuck with me, you’ve never doubted me, you never let me abandon you or leave you. And I.. love you so much for that. I’ve never been able to express how much, not - not until now.”  _ __   
__   
It was cheesy. It was generic. But it meant a lot, to both him and Dave, and by the end of it he laughed. They both had tears in their eyes.

  
He felt those tears against his cheek right before Dave pulled away, and he saw him wipe at his eyes. He had always been an ugly crier.    
  
“I love - love you. Thank you, for everything, Hal, I..” Dave’s voice cracked, he pinched the bridge of his nose. He looked.. shaken up, but he was beaming. He pulled his hand away and he was  _ grinning _ , and he kept smiling even as they kissed for the second time, as he swung an arm under Hal’s knees and picked him up.   
  
“Hey! Dave, put me down!” But Hal was laughing. The sound bubbled up in his throat, spilling out from him and only quieting once he buried his head into Dave’s shoulder. There was slight sound of crinkling paper, and Dave rushed from the courtroom, carrying him like he was nothing as they just kept attracting more stares. Hal’s whole face went red, staring back at the hall they were rapidly leaving behind. Dave only stopped once they reached an exit, and he put him down. He was breathing hard.   
  
“Dave, that was so foolish - can you imagine how many stares we got? We must’ve looked.. so weird, I..”   
  
“Sh - Shut up. We’re  _ married _ , Hal, we’re  _ married _ .” Dave had a rolled-up paper sticking out of his jacket pocket, which his sleeve hit as he took Hal’s hands in his. They both had matching silver bands; Hal’s mouth screwed up in a smile instinctively.    
  
“I don’t.. care who sees us anymore. We’re gonna be unstoppable; you, me, our puppies, and our shitty, moody chickens. We’re husbands.” Dave’s expression faltered, he looked softer, almost.    
  
Hal almost laughed.    
  
“You’re right. We’re.. husbands.”   
  
“Damn straight. C’mon; we should head home.” He pressed a kiss to Hal’s forehead, “Kirk and Bones are for sure wondering where we are.”   
  
  
\---   
  
  
Dave’s head poked through the doorway, leaning out into the room to watch the TV. “What are you playing?”   
  
“Katamari!” Hal’s thumb moved up to press pause, and his husband moved closer to the couch to see the screen. A beer can was in his hand. “Do you wanna sit down? Kirk is right in front of the couch, so be careful.”    
  
“Mm.. sure.” He hummed, coming around the other side to sit beside him. He grabbed the blanket from the back of the couch, carefully moving his feet around the resting puppy on the floor to rest them on the coffee table. Dave threw the blanket around their legs, making the final touch of resting against Hal’s shoulder.    
Hal resumed the game, Bones bounding into the room and jumping up onto Dave’s lap. He felt the slight weight of his husband’s head against his shoulder, heard a small laugh on Dave’s end.    
He kept playing, Dave scratching the back of Bones’s neck, the pleasant hum of music returning back to the room. It was easy, it was simple, and as Hal looked back to his partner, his friend, his lover, he knew he had made the right choice. A foolish, brazen one, but the right one. And he wouldn’t forget it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MARRIAGE.


End file.
